Greetings and salutations. I don't know why the giant photo of old Jerusalem at night dominates my blog all of a sudden. No doubt some button I pressed. and maybe it will disappear with this post. Allah byaref. (God knows) Yesterday was full and I have a lot of catching up to do.
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| Hand painted |
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| Palestinian Pottery |
I went to Palestinian Pottery, a place I first visited in 1962, with Margy, when she was pregnant with Wendy. At that time, two families ran it. They came to Jerusalem from Turkey around 1920 to repair the tiles in The Dome of the Rock and then decided to stay, since life for Armenians in Turkey then was rough. When we first visited, the two families were still working together. Soon after, they went their separate ways: now one family is here, near the old city, and the other family has a shop inside the old city, near The Church of the Holy Sepulcher. I met, Neshan, the current owner/director and designer. He said that in 1962, his grandfather, who was the one who came to Jerusalem in 1920 with the grandfather of the other family, would still have been throwing pots, and the man I talked to would have been Neshan's father. Neshan was working in Washington as a ceramic's designer when his father was diagnosed with Parkinson's so he came back to run the business. "It was a difficult decision to leave D.C., but continuing the family tradition was more important."
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| Room in Rafat's home |
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| Rafat, mom & ma'loubi |
I got together with Mohammed and Rafat in old Jerusalem. They came to Maine with Khitam to our Teen Drama Camp seven years ago. They're twenty-two now. I met Rafat first; Muhammed was working. Rafat and I started down a narrow way and before we got very far he said: "This is my house, and pointed to a door. He unlocked it and I followed him into his "house" inside old Jerusalem. We walked upstairs and sat in a small "sitting room" where there was a pitcher of lemonade and glasses. After a few minutes, Rafat's mother appeared and greeted me, first in Arabic, I think because I greeted her in Arabic, and then in pretty good English. "Welcome. Welcome. Ahlan wa sahlan. Welcome." After a bit, Rafat asked if I wanted to see the view from the roof. While we were gone, his mother laid out a meal of ma'loubi, a chicken, rice and vegetables dish that is a favorite here. There was also salad and some garnishes. I was not very hungry, but that didn't matter. I barely got away with only one helping!
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| Rafat & Muhammed |
Later, Muhammed joined us, refused food five or six times before Rafat's mother relented, and we had coffee and then went out to wander in Medieval Jerusalem. When we left, Rafat's mother said: "You have two homes now. This is your home in Jerusalem."
We wandered the city, talking about Muhammed's work - he's with an electric company, starting as a meter-reader and billing clerk, and hopes to work his way up, after two years of studying business. We talked about Rafat's hope to study business - he started but had to stop to study Hebrew in order to continue at the Hebrew University. He would like to go out of the country to study, maybe to Italy, where his brother, who knows English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Arabic, is getting his Masters in business.
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| Old Jerusalem |
Muhammed has a car, and Khitam was going to be another hour before we got together, so we drove up to the Mount of Olives to catch the night view of the city. The lights of the old city and of developments outside the city walls were a sparkling reminder of how fascinating old Jerusalem is and of how new developments are spreading. I prefer the old, but then, I am old. Jerusalem is full of cars and tour buses and housing developments and government plans that squeeze Palestinians. I respect Israeli ingenuity and decry some of the results. More, tomorrow.
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